AMH: What keeps you going ?
MGK: I think it comes back to the family work. For me, I believe the families are doing the very best they can. If the family is really impaired in some way, I see it as my job to figure out why that is their pattern of behavior, and I do what I can to help them facilitate change.
AMH: What inspires you about these families?
MGK: These families are able to recognize the strengths and beauty that their children bring them – the strength of these children, their personalities and their wills of steel! They are able to communicate what they need. Siblings, too, make life decisions based on their experiences. They often end up going down the path of caring for such children as professionals.
AMH: Do you have any recommendations for a young child psychiatrist who might be considering working with this population?
MGK: Developmental disabilities in child psychiatry is where medicine, neurology, and child development meet. The advances in genetics and neurology are major gifts to the field. It used to be that I would have to sell the field to medical students and residents. Now they are coming to me saying that they want to work in this area. It is an intellectually rich field in which to work. There is a real change happening. But the place where it becomes really magical is in working with the families.
AMH: What other changes have you seen?
MGK: With the closure of big institutions, it is less of an option for families to walk away. The families now feel that they need to take care of the child.
AMH: What has your career taught you?
MGK: It has taught me patience, to enter every situation without preconceived notions, and that there is something new to learn every day.
References
J Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1975 Jun 1;14(3):387-421.
Evaluation and Treating Families: The McMaster Approach. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2005.
Movies to watch
Lorenzo’s Oil, 1992.
My Left Foot, 1989.
Dr. Heru is professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. She is editor of “Working With Families in Medical Settings: A Multidisciplinary Guide for Psychiatrists and Other Health Professionals” (Routledge, 2013). She has no conflicts of interest.
Dr. Klitkze is a 1983 graduate of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, and completed her residency and fellowship training at Brown University, Providence, R.I. She is a member of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Rhode Island Medical Society, where she serves on the Physicians’ Health Committee. She is actively involved in teaching medical students, residents, and fellows, and has received several teaching awards from the department of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown.